Hobart College - Echo of the Seneca Yearbook (Geneva, NY)

Page 17 text:

WILLIAM ALFRED EDDY, Ph.D., LL.D., L.H.D. Scholar—Administrator—Man. We have known him as all of these, and yet we choose par- ticularly to remember him as a giver of ideas. Time has not marred his gifts to us three years ago; nor has it enervated his subsequent gifts in Sunday evening Chapel service, in Tuesday Chapel meeting, in forums and in personal encounters. Whether we have accepted or rejected what he said on these occasions, at all times we have been moved and stimulated. He has clearly and strongly given what he thinks and believes. With greater strength and greater clarity has he fought to maintain an atmosphere in which the lowliest student may express disagreement with what he or anyone else thinks or believes. Never has the strength of his argument caused students to feel that they incur his displeasure when they dissent. Always in the heat of any disagreement, he has ennobled the words of Voltaire, 'T disapprove of what you say, but I'll defend to death your right to say it .

Page 16 text:

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Page 18 text:

WALTER HETHERINGTON DURFEE, A.B., M.C.E., Ph.D. In this day of few investment opportunities and low interest rates, privately endowed schools must secure new income or else relinquish the greater portion of education to state-supported institutions. The state school must not he allowed to supplant the privately endowed insti- tution. Schools supported by the government are never beyond the reach of despotic politics; private schools are still relatively uncurbed in their efforts to maintain academic freedom. The realization that the death of the privately endowed liberal art college could clear the way for an intellectual tyranny exercised by the state has given vigour to the economic motive in the private school's struggle to survive. Feverishly devising new sources of income, some educators have forsaken the high ideals of education to entice and hold customers. Others have upheld the difficult standard of principle and integrity. We here pay tribute to one of the latter, Walter Hetherington Durfee. In an age that has taken its toll of ideals, he has steadily upheld the traditions of the Durfees who number their years as years of service to education, to Hobart, and to civilization.